Posted
by
samzenpuson Thursday November 03, 2005 @01:55AM
from the like-fried-chicken-and-doughnuts dept.

Dotnaught writes "New Scientist reports that Nestec, a Nestle subsidiary, has applied for a patent on a fermented coffee beverage. In other words, coffee beer -- it foams like beer and packs the caffeine of coffee, with "fruity and/or floral notes due to the fermentation of the coffee aroma."

Actually this drink does not contain any alcohol at all. I don't think it is really beer.But anyway, for all those nay-saying this patent, I think it's a fairly decent one. It certainly isn't obvious!

From TFA:Nestlé admits it was tricky to preserve the characteristic coffee smell in the production process. Coffee beans are roasted normally, and the chemicals containing the natural aroma collected in a cryogenic condenser, before being converted into coffee oil. The remains of the roast are then ground to powder, mixed with yeast and sucrose, and fermented for 4 hours at just below 22C. At this temperature the yeast can still metabolise but does not generate alcohol.

The aroma oil is then mixed in with the liquid and nitrogen is injected to make it foam. Adding a touch of extra sugar also helps trap the aroma until the drink is poured, Nestlé claim.

Now, ask yourself, is that obvious? I think this patent is perfectly acceptable.

Err, isn't "recipe" just a word that means "put things together this way"? Isn't that what a huge number of patents are? In this case, you're using coffee and yeast instead of silicon and plastic. Just because you ingest it doesn't make the process any less patentable.

Coca Cola company *never* got a patent on cola; in fact their recipe is a closely guarded company secret. Why is that?

Because patents require disclosure, the whole idea is to offer a certain time of protection for a product while at the same time forcing disclosure of it to the public. It is this disclosure that makes it possible for people to advance technologies and improve on them. Actually the Coca-Cola as a trade secret is a great example of how keeping a secret and not disclosing could technically stifle innovation in the soda industry if other companies were already so prolific in the area anyway.

The Big Mac is a BAD example. It is a burger which would be easily rejected as a sum of its parts. Nothing holding patentable weight, but a drink like Coca-Cola is a chemical mixture and one that is actually useful. What you fail to realize is that by patenting this idea Nestle has made is possible for every company in the world to improve on their process and to improve the overall item. Without this it would be a trade secret for all eternity and no one would ever know how it was made. Since this is something that people have not done before, it is important that disclosure is made in order to allow people to actually learn the process.

Really, you are WAY off base on this one. Go crawl back into your hole of paranoia, and moderators mod down the Parent because he is not insightful at all, just terribly misinformed.

You mean to say that there Pepsi Cola, Herschi Cola, 7UP, Spa Green/Red, Tonic, Cassis, etc. could all be bought before Coca Cola existed? Or you mean to say that these other soda drinks are there because of the stiffling effect of not having a patent on Coca Cola?

Take the big 4 soda makers. Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, RC, and DPSU (Dr. Pepper/Seven-Up in case you are dense). Now none of these companies use the same formula. This is why they all have very different tasting soda products and why many people either love or hate one or the other when it comes to Coke and Pepsi in particular.

Now let us say for a minute that no one else was quick enough to have figured out the wonderful process and ingredients that Coca-Cola uses. By having a patent you force disclosure meaning everyone would then be in the know about Coca-Cola's recipe. This means that anyone could clone Coca-Cola perfectly after the patent age was up (see the post that is a sibling to the GP).

As it stands Coca-Cola's recipe is a trade secret and the same is probably quite true for Pepsi, RC and Dr. Pepper. This means that a "perfect" copy of these drinks is never going to be possible because so long as they protect their trade secret, anyone making a exact clone would be breaking the law in "stealing a trade secret." This means knock-off soda made by the people who provide grocery chains and Wal-Mart with their generic soda will never be perfect replicas and only close approximations.

What this boils down to is this: no patent means competition is only driven between brands of what are technically varying products. There is no generic substitute so people who want the "real thing" have to buy it from Coke, Pepsi, etc. This means that they usually do not have to worry so much about competing with the prices of generic sodas which are often sold for as much as half the cost of the name brand. The reason they do not have to compete with these is because they are smaller in number, but also because they can never successfully replicate a brands taste without copying the recipe, which as discussed above is illegal.

Your example of the RIM v. NTP case is not a good example. First off, you misuse the idea because it goes beyond e-mail and wireless link. Go read the claims of the patent and get back to me on that one, because unlike what the masses of patent haters on/. would like you to believe the case isn't as dumbed down as it looks.

Now back to my original example. The reason a Big Mac has no patent is because burgers are much older then the Big Mac. The idea of adding lettuce, tomato, etc. is no big deal since it would be "well known" in the art. There was nothing new and innovative about the Big Mac, I mean even the lame sauce isn't that secret.

I will now point you to a particular patent for a food product. In this case 4,871,554 which is a patent for fortified food products. The first claim basically covers your fortified orange juice. The patent as you will see is held by Coca-Cola, for their Minute Maid division no doubt. I once again invite you to look at class 426 and check out subclass 7 for fermentation processes. There are patents for Anheuser-Busch which covered a cholesterol free egg product (3,987,212) which is now expired.

There is a difference between patenting a mass produced product and a simple cooking recipe. The fact is it would not be economical to get patents on simple food recipes and quite possibly impossible since there is such a wide variety in cooking. On a side note, recipes have the potential to be copyrighted [copyright.gov] if provided with the proper context. We all know how much longer a copyright lasts over a patent.

Seriously, this is not a really contested issue among patents and you are in an obvious minority here. Why do I say that? The patent application is a WIPO/PCT patent application being sent to a wide variety of states, therefore it must be something that holds patentable weight in many countries and not just in the USA.

Cloning the exact taste of Coke wouldn't be that hard if you threw a bunch of scientists at it. The reason it isn't done, is because as soon as you put out a product (CokeRipoff), and say it tastes just like Coke, you're admitting that Coke is the best. People will cease to buy your original product, Pepsi?, and buy Coke, because you are saying Coke is the good product. Some people will buy CokeRipoff, however, they know they aren't buying the real Coke, and will only buy CokeRipoff if, it is much cheape

The thing is if your crack team of scientists "reverse engineer" the coke formula Coca Cola is going to throw a fit and quite likely you'll get sued back to the stone age and that is not exactly something people want to deal with. The idea is the Coke formula is a trade secret and violating that would cost you.

Please don't post in ignorance. If you reverse-engineered Coke's formula (which has already been done), the Coca-Cola corporation would have absolutely no legal grounds on which to sue you. If you

The idea is the Coke formula is a trade secret and violating that would cost you.

No, no, no. That is absolutely NOT how a trade secret works. In fact, you cannot violate a trade secret precisely because of that second word: secret. If you come up with the formula for Coca Cola by any other means (i.e. chemical analysis, trial&error, plain dumb luck) than flat-out stealing the recipe, you're clear.

Of course, if you work for Coca Cola, have knowledge of the recipe and sell it to competitor X, you're toa

To go with my other patent, check out class 426 [uspto.gov] over at the USPTO. So this isn't that odd of an occurence to patent food and beverages if there is a whole class for it. Also another note from my sibling post, a trade secret provides nearly the same legal protection as a patent in many cases, so long as the company takes great effort to maintain said secret. In this case Coca-Cola would be able to sue just about anyone selling a cola product with the exact (and possibly very similar) recipe as their own s

As much as I tend to disdain the very novelty of redhook beers and patently despise the evil empire that Howard Shultz begat I can say without hesitation that Double Black was one of the better middle-of-the-road too-sweet porters out there and it was ONLY the bitterness of harbucks' over-roasted (they call it "full city") mcdonald's-coffee-for-three-dollars-a-cup beans that made the bland sweetness of yet another redhook underachiever stand up and say hello. I mean, the only beverage I hate more than Redh

Brewed frothy coffee, what a concept, no coffee shop in the world could have possibly invented that on their own. This is like Microsoft patenting the "double click". Then why don't the Italians then patent pizza and the Mexicans patent tacos and diarrhea!

There are plenty of chocolate-makers in Europe, besides Nestle. Being in Finland, the two dominant companies here are Cloetta/Fazer and Kraft Foods (which owns such brands as Marabou and O'boy, as far as chocolate is concerned). There ARE products by Nestle available here (Kitkat for example), but they are not the dominant player. Nestle might be the biggest one overall, but they do not dominate the field, IMO.

Mod parent up - Cadburys and Mars are just as big, Cadburys Schweps also I believe own the Coca Cola franchise in Europe.Nestle only seems big because it bought out British Rowntrees in the late 80's early 90's, which made Fruit Pastels, Kitkats, Smarties, Polos etc...

You're right about Nestle, but, well, at least it's not Cadbury. The "venerable" british chocolatier sells chocolate flavoured wax aggregate, occasionally with crushed economy nut sweepings. It's absolute rubbish. Nestle, while a giant corporation who basically tries to sell you less for more, at least has legitimate researchers or whatever making a kit-kat or whatever taste reasonable. Cadbury is just plain shite.

I dont eat much chocolate, but when I am over in the USA, I make sure that I get some he

Nestle basically bought all of the chocolate manufacturing in Europe..

What about Lindt [lindtchocolate.com]? I don't think is Nestle owned and there are many "little" chocolate prodoucers in Europe that make some delicious product.
Here in italy we have NOVI, that's quite good but if you are searching something particular and you are in tuscany try the one from slitti [slitti.it]

Look in to the history of chocolate. It was Mr. Nestle himself that invented powdered milk. That's where the name - Nestle - came from. Of fucking course it's made with powdered milk. The whole point of using powdered milk is that it allows you to control the moisture content more closely - creating a more even product. Using fresh milk - and calling it quality as a result - is a pure marketing gimmick.

Call me crazy, but wouldn't the patent actually cover their particular implementation of a coffee-beer like substance? i.e., wouldn't their patent actually have a formular in there somewhere which describes what they are patenting? Looking at the Abstract for the patent they are pretty specific what it is the patent covers. I don't think Drew Carey specified in his show a technique for making the beer or the specific ratios of methylbutanol to methylbutanol and thioacetates to thiols. Not the mention th

If it looks like beer, foams like beer, but smells and tases like coffee, then it's this stuff. It has caffiene, but no alcohol. I'm wondering if this is just a novelty, or if there really is some place for it in the market since I think this probably would be more expensive than regular coffee. I would think if people want coffee they'd get coffee, and if they want beer they'd get beer. It just strikes me as a solution without a problem. A very clever solution, but still one without a problem.

You'd think they'd at least come up with a better name for this 'drink,' instead of concatenating the two ingredients.
Anyone who wants to see the patent application, the it's here [wipo.int] [pdf].
I think I'll pass on the taste-test.

I know someone who's been putting espresso into some of his homebrew for years (a bottle of it keeps you awake while you're working on a bender) but keeping the alcohol out is a new twist and might be worthy of a patent.

However, these are simply Porters, Stouts, etc. that are brewed as they would normally be but with the addition of coffee, being a complimentary and intuitive adjunct since roasted malts frequently contribute a coffeeish, roasty sort of malt bitterness and flavor to many dark beers.

In fact, this Nestle product wouldn't even seem to be eligible to be called beer since it doesn't appear to contain malt, a prime ingredient of beer along with water, hops and yeast.

Does anyone think they're the first to think of combining the two most addictive beverages in the world?

I'm sure the patent is much more specific than just mixing the two, enough to make it unique, but the general idea is nothing new. I really didn't know you could patent food, but I guess where there's a will there's a way.

Homer: Uh, yeah. I need something that will keep me awake, alert, and reckless all night long.Clerk: Well, Congress is racing back to Washington to outlaw
these. [puts a bottle of pills on the counter]Homer: [takes bottle] Sold!
[downs most of the pills on the spot]Clerk: Hey, you can't take that many pep pills at once.Homer: No problem, I'll balance it out with a bottle of sleeping

Also from another site analysing beers: Mountain Sun's coffee beer also has more of a coffee flavor. "I love the Mountain Sun Java, but it has a lot more coffee character," Parker said. "That's the beauty of it. Even in something as esoteric as a coffee beer you can have a range of choices. That's what makes brewing g

In the same article they mention a "Cellphone chaperone", interestingly mine http://www.meta-sat.com/ [meta-sat.com] and several other built-in car-phones can do exactly that. From certain numbers previously registered with the phone you can call the car and listen in to what is happening. It is used by numerous delivery companies. They go further and can upgrade the phones software remotely too.

There was even a demonstration of such a system on British TV at least 10 years ago being used by the police in "sting" opera

with "fruity and/or floral notes due to the fermentation of the coffee aroma."

Ah, yes. The fruity and/or floral notes. It has a slightly musky scent wafting on the pallette and... wait. We're talking about a cross between beer and Red Bull here. WTF is it with the high-brow wine vocabulary?! Ah, well. We brought it back down to the college level at the end when we proposed that it was caused by an aroma that ferments.

Forget coffee beer -- I'm sticking with Kahlua [wikipedia.org] (a coffee liqueur). It's versatile. You can drink it, you can mix it with other forms of alcohol to create mixed drinks, you can add chocolate and ice cream to make a mudslide, you can put it in a milkshake, you can add it to brownies, you can make tiramisu...

Heck, you can put Kahlua in coffee!

I don't see being able to do any of that with a beer made from coffee. Not if I want the result to be drinkable, anyway.

and I could have scooped them - some years ago, I noticed that the stale instant Nestle tastes incredibly lot like a stale weak beer. (I thought it was nice that they did not use the usual burnt motoroil flavor like Folgers'). So they were just passing a beta version of their birra Coffiest!

Here [byo.com] is a nice article on how to home brew your own coffee ale and how to best brew with coffee and/or coffee beans. For those who haven't tried, home brewing is really rather easy (if you can make homemade soup, you can make homemade beer). The only downside (in my opinion) is all the sanitation and cleaning up, i.e., "doin' the dishes." I presently have a Christmas Ale in the fermenter that is about as black as coffee (I hope it mellows a bit between now and Christmas).

Step by StepMash in all grains at 149&#161; F (65&#161; C). Hold until converted, about 1 hour. Mash off at 170&#188; F (77&#161; C) and begin lautering. Sparge to achieve eight gallons (30 L) of wort. Bring to a boil and add 2.5 oz. (71 g) boiling hops. Total boil is 70 minutes. After the boil, turn off the heat and add 1.5 oz. (43 g) finish hops for five minutes. Cool to 70&#188; F (21&#161; C) and ferment with ale yeast. Original gravity goal is 17.5&#161; Plato (1.069 SG). Terminal gravity will be pretty high, approximately 1.016. Add espresso at end of primary fermentation, bottle and enjoy!

I worked with real programmers. The kind who develop mission critical software where mistakes are not tolerated. Aeroplane flight control software systems, for instance. Such people cannot be impaired while coding, and thus avoid alcoholic and caffeinated beverages completely.

And what do these Real Red Blooded Programmers do after work? Sit around waiting for the Bug Alarm, at which point they slide down the Fire Pole leading from their basement above the office to the office itself? No rational person

Real Programmers can code anything they want. They write operating systems all the time and don't even think twice about it. These guys are crazy and awsome and code all the time. I heard that there was this Real Programmer who was eating at dinner. And when some dude dropped a spoon, the Real Programmer replaced the entire town with a shell script.

Dude... shut the hell up. I work with real programmers, where if we get something wrong it hits millions if not billions of people, and they all get mad.

We do "real programming" as much as anyone else.

Fact is, you can take whatever opinions you have about beer and caffeine, but the average person doesn't share those opinions. The average person sees nothing wrong with either caffeine or beer. This is the reason why Starbuck's makes tons of money, and why any gas station has probably about 1/4 of the beverages that it has for sale which are alcoholic.

Your small little prudish subsection of the world may not give a shit about caffeinated beer, but neither will devout Mormons, Arabs, nor dry counties all around the country. Just because you don't give a shit, doesn't mean no one else will. Especially even among even "real" programmers.

If it's in moderation, alcohol and/or caffeine is alright. Maybe you're thinking of extreme cases, like the unemployed guy down the street drinking 10 beers before lunch time. I have met many smart people who drink alcohol socially. Caffeine has been around for centuries and again, within moderation, it isn't going to kill you or make you stupid.

Before you start harping on people drinking caffeine or alcohol, take a look at what people eat. The nutrition value of meals these days, in the US, has taken a large nosedive. Obesity is huge, and it is mostly because of what people eat and the lack of exercise.

Moderated beer consumption doesn't make one a good or bad programmer....

Beg to differ. Let's start programming and you drink spring water while I drink Red Bull and expresso and we'll see who's still functional in 72 hours. I've worked around people that do Cocaine and they get worthless after awhile but the caffine drinkers fair well. Different drugs effect the body in different ways. I do fine large amounts of caffine clear your head and can somewhat overcome a lack of sleep. I can't recommend it and ideally the best is 8 hours of good quality sleep but I find for various rea

If you are fantatical about your body I'd avoid sitting infront of a computer, drop your calorie intack below 1,000 a day and pick a career where you are kept physically active for 8 to 10 hours a day.

Um... The USDA uses a 2000 Calorie reference diet. That's for a normal lifestyle. If you put eight to ten hours of physical activity in and only consume 1000 Calories, most people are not gonna last long...

I think that human beings are an incredibly variable lot, and some people can tolerate the effects of caffeine (and indeed lack of sleep) a lot better than others.

Caffeine makes me jumpy and makes my heart feel like it's doing crazy things long before it really starts to keep me awake. And when it does keep me awake, it might as well not for all the difference it makes to my productivity.

They may not kill you, but they sure as hell don't help you. And no, they do not have health benefits. Certain alcoholic drinks, like red wine, contain substances that do offer health benefits. But the alcohol does not.

All alcohol does is impair the drinker's mind. Caffeine causes undue anxiety. Those are not good things to suffer from when you're trying to write solid software, especially when facing deadlines and changing requirements.

Caffeine has benefites for endurance athletes - runners, cyclists, etc. That's besides the obvious benefit of keeping you awake and alert. Not driving into a tree is good for your health. QED you fucking prude.

Certain alcoholic drinks, like red wine, contain substances that do offer health benefits. But the alcohol does not.

Both of them have health benefits. A recent study even told that (this is crazy) more alcohol you drink, not just red wine as you point, better it is to your hearth. Some research also suggests that moderate drinking may cut the risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. The only problem is that it's also very harmful to drink large amounts of alcohol so the harmful effects are a lot bigger issue than health benefits.

I don't want the developers of mission critical software being impaired while designing and implementing software. I'm talking about software that can result in people dying if it contains errors. The sort of software controlling nuclear power plant shutdown systems, or aeroplane flight control software.

Is it wrong to assume there is some method of testing/supervision for new programmers and reviews for old to avoid that very situation happening?

I don't give a rats ass if a person is stoned, hyper on caffine or buzzed if they accomplish what they attempt, always. If there isn't a method to see if a person is capable for this mission critical software, THAT is the problem.

I have some bad news for you. Your mission critical software has errors. Maybe not quite as many as some "less mission critical software", but it has errors.

BTW: It isn't just guesswork that reduces errors. If you have formally proven your systems, (which I'm quite sure you have right?) then they are correct. It isn't necessary for the implementer really to be sober as long as you have a formal proof and others, including yourself with your pristine substance free (no sugar right) body, can check the proof. Going from a provably correct system to real code is pretty easy work what with all those nice tight pre/post conditions an all.

Oh, and of course you only use compilers that are subjected to similar standards, right?

And please don't tell me any of this runs on windows, none of it runs on windows, right? I bet you're only solid mission critical operating systems that have had every line of code checked and double checked against a formal system? Right?

After all, we wouldn't want the software with bugs. It has to be as good as the rest of the airplane, bug free, nothing will fail, nothing has been overlooked, the design is PERFECT!!!

Reminds of that accident that happened sometime in the late eighties/early nineties where an airplane toilet had its contents jetisoned while still in flight and the frozen contents came crashing into someone's living room. The victim was quoted as saying "Of course it surprised me, the last thing I expect to come crashing into my house in this day and age is an icy BM."

I then must worry about "mission ciritcal" NORMAL people, like ambulance drivers and firefighters...Wait. Every time you drive a car someone is at risk. Screw the don't drink and drive thing, we need don't drink a coke and drive!

Moderation. Yes, repeat that word. Real adults know their limits. Sure a pot of coffee will make me purform less well, but 2-3 cups has no real mental imparement. (for me), and thus I indulge.

Fat foods, and a lazy life style could also hinder their abilities. As could dating.

Regular exercise is a far better option than resorting to caffeine highs. With such exercise you're able to maintain a better mental state, and do not tire as easily. It's better to give developers a gym pass than a coffee machine.

Everything in moderation, including moderation.I half a 1 and a half hour commute each day.I do this on a bicyle

I also drink coffee (usually in moedration) and alcohol (in moderation).

Then again, Im currently working in moscow for a week, so I have no biking commute, I drink about a dozen cups of coffee a day, (and Im not going to talk about alcohol, though compared to the locals Im hardly drinking anything).

Ive also spend time doing similar work in muslim countries (no alcohol allowed, and tea, tea, tea al

Contrary to popular thought, some of the best beer out there is American. Arrogant Bastard Ale and Storm King Stout, anybody?

No thanks.

Beats me where these are from, but try St. Peters Porter or Original Flag Porter. (Original Flag may be US? Regardless, it beats any of the numerous US porters I've tried.) Any stout must top the standards of that category - Guiness, Murphy's, etc., and Storm King didn't do it for me. Even Rasuputin Imperial Stout was a more interesting drink. There are about 9 million

My guess is that the selling point of the product is that it is a packaged foamy drink. It is easy to market foamy. Coffee shops do a good job selling foaminess. The other bottled caffiene drinks are all flat. So, something that foams might stand out.

Dude! You read and post to (well, post to at least)/. I can just imagine a hoard of 7th grade boys talking to you."What's that you're reading?""Slashdot""Oh, is that about hockey?""No, it's about computers and technology and open source.""dude, that's so gay"(they walk off chuckling)

What did they do? Well, they took a subject that none of them like (or none would admit that they like) and since they were in the majority, they labelled it a pejorative term. Needless to say, using the word "gay" to mean "ba